From ctm_logan at yahoo.com Thu Jul 16 14:54:10 2020 From: ctm_logan at yahoo.com (Christopher L) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2020 19:54:10 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Permatopia] Your nuclear future In-Reply-To: <657CEF3E-F90C-4CB8-B98D-6F00E3A52B84@kathyging.com> References: <657CEF3E-F90C-4CB8-B98D-6F00E3A52B84@kathyging.com> Message-ID: <729487326.2834712.1594929250364@mail.yahoo.com> ?Greetings Permatopians! You may know me as a guy with little faith in "writing yer congressman", and I don't expect the NRC to be a lot more sympathetic to my concerns.? However, this is the one issue that could permanently make Earth uninhabitable by complex Life forms, including humans.? Exposure to nuclear radiation damages DNA, leading not only to cancers but to next-generation mutations, most of which are fatal and many of which are crippling.? You might think, "But one of those mutations might produce a better human race!"? But generation by generation, any gain would be degraded by further mutation, such that a big-brained "cultivar" of humans would be crippled by having no legs or a hand growing out of their back.? Eventually, no animal could produce viable offspring, and the same would be true of plants.?? We might survive an intense global warming period - maybe not as individuals, but as a literate society of human beings - but we cannot survive continual bombardment by nuclear radiation.? It's truly the death sentence of the human race, unless we (1) stop making the stuff and (2) dedicate our entire scientific apparatus (which is now hired to come up with agricultural poisons, new cell phone apps, weapons and so fort) to the prevention of existing nuclear waste having any interaction with human Life (for about a million years). Now, currently, there is a struggle on between the anti-nuclear movement and industry's "nuclear renaissance".?? With Fukushima that notion hit a speed bump, but the latest ploy - not well publicized, but pervasive throughout the energy community - is SMRs: Small Modular Reactors.? These are mini-nukes that can be built in a year or two, will fit in a shipping container for transportation anywhere, and which are advertised as "walk-away safe".?? That's right folks, they have this new meme, in the tradition of "too cheap to meter", that implies perfect safety for these new reactors, which can be deployed to remote and rugged areas, formerly too difficult to mine or drill or clearcut or whatever.? Think, the Amazon Forest, the Arctic (possibly even relatively pristine Antarctica).? Or Eugene.?? An SMR could produce enough electricity to run several factories and many homes.? "Why not?" some will say.? Well, because of that radiation thing, ye know ... No machine is "walk-away safe", and each generation of nuclear power plant has been mooted as "perfectly safe ... no cause for alarm", and each time we get a Chernobly, a 3-Mile Island or a Fukushima (which are just the most public disasters, there being lots of others, unfortunately), they tell us, "but the new model is perfectly safe." Oh, and by the way, NuScale, headquartered in Oregon, plans to make nuclear reactors in Corvallis. What about the waste?? Right now there are, in about 500 locations around the world, about a quarter of a million tons of high-level nuclear waste (funky old fuel rods, that nobody knows what to do with - some disappeared recently from Humboldt Bay https://www.nti.org/gsn/article/utility-searches-cooling-pond-to-locate-fuel-rods-at-closed-california-nuclear-power-plant/).? What to do with a vicious poison that remains inimical to human Life for hundreds of thousands of years? In Finland, the government has dug a big hole for "permanent storage".? They just slide it into the hole and they're done with it. They hope.?? Here in America, the plan had been Yucca Mountain, in Nevada.? Strangely, the Nevadans objected, and the experiments made by the government showed that the mountain was not impervious to radiation.? That is, it would leak. What to do?? The NRC is on the hook for permanent storage, which they promised to the nuclear industry, and the government agency is paying regular fees to energy companies for not letting them off the hook with a permanent storage location.? To avoid both inconvenience to an industry responsible for 20% of America's electricity AND to get off an expensive hook, the NRC conceived of "interim storage", meaning that they expect to one day have a permanent site, but "in the meantime" we'll bury it somewhere else, relieving power companies of the duty to safeguard the waste for a million years. Now the nub of the problem: Two holes have been dug, by two different companies, one in New Mexico and the other in Texas.? The companies are now seeking approval for their "interim storage".? It would involve transporting, by rail, truck and ship, the nuke waste of about 100 nuke plants around the country.? The remains of Portland's Trojan plant would pass through Eugene, for instance, probably in several shipments.? What could go wrong? Once they're deposited in the badlands of the Southwest, where hardly anyone lives, to object or even observe, industry gets to wash its hand of the waste ... and to continue producing more waste!? That is, this "interim" storage plan gives the "nuclear renaissance" huge assistance, since nobody would invest in a project that involved a one-million-year commitment to maintenance, after the profits are not coming in.?? By handing responsibility to another company, which can go bankrupt at any time, the industry gets clear sailing to massively increase the production of nuke waste around the world. Now, how long will these companies find it profitable to guard the waste?? What happened to Enron?? Barings Bank?? Remember the auto industry of Detroit?? Didn't we used to have a Hynix plant here?? Look at the fate of airlines today. Companies are only concerned with profit.? When they become unprofitable, they collapse.? It's possible, but not certain, that Holtec (one of the companies) could remain in business, profitably, as long as it has contracts to transport waste and drop it into its hole.? But after that? Do you hear the wind whistling across the tortured sands, out in New Mexico??? That's the funeral music of the biosphere.?? Chernbyl has just been "capped" with cement again, and the "promise" is that it will be good for 100 years.? Dry casking (the best form of sequestration known today) is "guaranteed" for a century, though industry claims it might last 200 years.? What sort of society will exist in 200 years?? Civilizations rise and fall, and ours was based on infinite exploitation of a finite world.? That is, Industrial Civilization will not be as robust in the 2060s and 2160s as it was in the 1960s when all our aspirations were formed.? Burying this horrific waste in New Mexico and Texas is not the end of the nuclear story - but it would be ... ... THE END OF EFFECTIVE RESISTANCE TO A "NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE". Once SMRs are guaranteed a repository for waste, for which their owners do not have to take responsibility, investment in these mini-nukes would be enthusiastic.? If, on the other hand, no repository is available, then further production of nuke waste becomes a troublesome project.? And so it should be!?? It's troublesome for humans, for Earth, for a million years - but if it's not troublesome for industry, and if they get this "interim storage", they will give us more and more of it, in ever more remote locations. Therefore, I'm respectfully suggesting that Permatopians write to the NRC during the comment period, to scold them for even thinking about letting industry and the government off the hook, and planting this dangerous waste to endanger everyone, just for the profitability of the industry.? Recommended talking points (though of course yours will be your own) are: - "interim" is bullshit.? Our society is unlikely develop a "safe place" to keep the nuclear legacy before industrial civilization declines beyond that ability.? This is just a fast-and-dirty expedient in reply to the proved inadequacy of any "permanent storage".? Make no mistake - it will stay where it's put, until it begins to migrate out of the storage location. - The nuclear industry is intrinsically harmful and dangerous to human Life and all other Life, and should not be encouraged by allowing industry to produce deadly waste for which it bears no responsibility.? "Full cost accounting" must be applied. - This is a "quickie" project, not subjected to the long testing and discussion that characterized the Yucca Mountain project.? And this is obviously deliberate.? This is our LAST CHANCE TO COMMENT, and if our objections are dismissed, the project will go from an industry wet dream to actual storage in just a couple of decades.? That is irresponsible.? Much more study is required, and would likely show that the sites chosen are unsuitable, just as Yucca Mountain was eventually rejected. - The Ogalala Aquifier is nearby.? True, it is not currently connected to the proposed storage sites, but geological events have always occurred and the crust of the Earth moves around.? Since we can't predict what will happen in the next million years, we have no business threatening water, land and air in the Southwest (and possibly around the world) with a concentration of lethal nuke waste that is bound to migrate. - NO NUKES!? Don't industry continue to produce intensely radioactive waste that lasts a million years.? Don't keep on this course.? More industrial prosperity in the short term is not worth wiping out the human race in the medium term. Okay, I'm done.? The contact information is below.? I recommend email, since it gives you an electronic copy of what you've sent.? The deadline is November 3, but I recommend getting your thoughts in right away.? Tell your friends.? Let's get as large a protest together as we can, since most of the testimony will be by for-profit companies in favor of the project. Good luck to us all.? Though I doubt the ultimate effectiveness of letter-writing alone, even stalling this project for a short time, due to mass protest, might kill the damthing.? It's certainly worth a try. Blessings! c. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff is extending the public comment period for the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on?Interim Storage Partners? proposed consolidated interim storage facility in Texas for an additional 60 daysto allow more time for members of the public to develop and submit their comments. The new deadline for submitting comments is November 3, 2020.? The NRC staff will issue shortly aFederal Register Notice addressing the comment period extension. The NRC staff intends to host a public webinar later this summer to accept verbal comments on the draft EIS and will provide details in a futureFederal Register Notice.? Also, it is the NRC staff?s goal to hold in-person public meetings in the vicinity of the proposed site. ?As the COVID public health emergency evolves, the NRC staff will continue to evaluate these plans for engaging the public. Members of the public can also continue to provide comments on the draft EIS to the NRC via: - e-mail: WCS_CISF_EIS at nrc.gov - Regulations.gov | | | | Regulations.gov | | | (search for Docket ID NRC-2016-0231) - Mail comments to:? Office of Administration, Mail Stop:? TWFN-7-A60M, ATTN:? Program Management, Announcements and Editing Staff, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001 ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: